Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Todd Casper sings, and plays guitar and piano, in a great mostly unknown indie rock band called The Great Depression. I was introduced to their music by Todd himself, who I met while living in Prague. We bonded over being American expats, our shared love of those first few notes of Everything In Its Right Place and our obedient, endless devotion to the Gastroturkey (long story). He gave me some demos of his music and I became an instant fan.

A year or two ago, I ordered TGD's excellent Unconscious Pilot album. And recently, when I heard they had a new one coming this year, called Preaching to the Fire, I ordered it too. And so began what I would later call in an email to Todd, "The Great Depression CD Ordering Odyssey."

First I ordered from New Artist Direct. My credit card was charged. I checked my mailbox daily. No CD came.

I emailed them and they told me they were sorry but they never received the CD from the label (Fire Records) and would refund my money. I was disappointed, so I emailed Todd and asked him what I should do next. Order direct from firerecords.com, he told me. So I did.

My credit card was charged. I checked my mailbox daily. No CD came.

After a full month passed, I started to get pissed. I emailed three separate times asking for either the CD or my money back.

I checked my email inbox repeatedly. No response (or CD) came.

Finally I went back to Todd. Todd was plenty annoyed at how hard it was to get his album (and possibly annoyed at me for bugging him so much about it). But he wrote back right away to tell me that the head of the label was personally shipping the album to me the next day.

I had actually ordered using PayPal, which ships to my parents' address. So I had them check their mailbox daily. And, moments ago, they called to tell me that a package had arrived from England.

Though I won't believe it until I unwrap it myself, it seems that I finally have my album.